Hurried footsteps crunching dried leaves and the babble of the nearby river are all that break the silence of the moonless night. The footsteps are light and full of excitement, made by a child. The child, a boy of nine years, has slipped away from his home with a coveted treasure grasped in his fists: a large firework.
The boy’s father had thought he’d hidden them away, but the boy was clever, not to mention determined. He’d told his friends about the fireworks, and they, also being boys who shared the love of blowing stuff up, egged him on to steal one. Hardly needing much encouragement, the group set a plan to meet that night near the old bridge out in the forest.
Our young firework thief had played it so well. He’d dutifully eaten all his dinner and when bedtime rolled around, he’d brushed his teeth and changed to his pajamas without complaint. Being a smart lad, he’d laid in his bed until he heard his parents finish their own bedtime preparations and the house fall silent.
When he felt his moment had come, the boy slipped out of bed, changed into his jeans and a t-shirt, slipped on his coat, and headed to the garage. As quiet as a mouse, he’d scaled his father’s workbench and leaned over to the top shelf of the nearby cabinet. Rummaging for a bit, he’d at last found his prize: a big purple box of artillery-style fireworks.
He considered taking the whole box, but his precarious perch on the workbench made working the huge box off the shelf impossible. The last thing he wanted was to drop it and bring his parents running. So, he settled for taking just one tube.
Now, the boy nears the rendezvous spot he and his friends had decided upon, an old railroad bridge spanning a small river. A sound from the darkness brings the boy to a halt. He listens carefully, scanning the forest around him, but nothing stirs.
He takes another couple of steps, but another sound, a voice, brings him to a stop once more. He’s sure he recognizes the voice as one of his mates. He calls out, and the voice beckons him to come closer.
The boy follows the voice to the river’s edge. There’s nothing there, only the gently flowing water and darkness.
A shuffling behind him causes the boy to whirl around. A figure, that of a man, tall and thin, raises up from thin air. Fear steals the air from the boy’s lungs. He can’t scream, can’t move. The boy knows instinctively what he faces. He’s heard his parents stories. It’s John Wick… Sorry, it’s the Bubák.
The Bubák is a version of the boogeyman from Czech folklore. I make the joke about John Wick because I think the movie’s writers meant to compare their main character with something more akin to the Bubák rather than Baba Yaga.
Baba Yaga is a witch or ogress. She and her sisters walk around on chicken legs and eat children in their spare time. The Bubák, on the other hand, is a mysterious and threatening figure. When it takes a form, it is of a scarecrow-like figure, tall and thin and dressed all in black. That sounds a bit more like John Wick, if you ask me.
Where the folklore of the Bubák differs from Mr. Wick is that the Bubák is said to imitate the cries of a child or baby to lure victims to their doom. It either eats its victims or drags their souls to Hell and moves between the world of the living and the dead on a cart pulled by black cats.
The Bubák is the one of the many versions of the boogeyman that exist all over the world. Tales such as this are usually told to children to get them to behave. Listen to your Mom and Dad or the Bubák will get you. You can even see echoes of the boogeyman in Santa Claus, a man who comes into your home at night, leaving presents for good little boys and girls, but punishing the naughty children with lumps of coal. But then, of course, we all know that Santa is real, so maybe it’s not such a good comparison after all.